Devastator

by Isaac Hooke

  Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  21

  Jain held his shield underneath him, hoping it would partially break his fall, but he still hit hard.

  The hit point number in the upper right of his vision flashed. It had dropped from a hundred to sixty-five. He expected to have broken an arm or leg in the fall but was otherwise fine, save for the reduced number of “hit points.”

  “Gotta love VR,” he muttered, clambering to his feet.

  Just in time to face three tentacled aliens coming at him.

  He swung his laser-tipped battle-ax frantically, and hewed off any tentacle that came at him. Then he rushed the central creature, slicing his blade up its midsection. The creature split almost in half before falling.

  A tentacle wrapped around his leg, and Jain struck down, slicing it off.

  His hit points dropped by another ten points, to fifty-five.

  “Hey, no fair!” he said to no one in particular. “It barely touched me!”

  Two more tentacles came at him, but he swung twice in rapid succession, cutting them away. He leaped at the owner and cut off the head, then spun around and threw his ax, plunging it into the center of mass of the remaining creature.

  He ran forward, evading the tentacles of other creatures that were coming in at him from the sides, leaped onto the stricken Xenon as it fell, and ripped the ax away from it.

  Medeia landed beside him and swung her sword rapidly, forcing the aliens that had closed in to back off; the gathered Xenon formed a ring around the pair. Jain pressed his back to Medeia’s, and they circled, daring the creatures to close.

  “What are you doing here?” Jain asked over his shoulder.

  “Buddy system,” she explained.

  “Nice jump by the way,” Jain said.

  “Did you see it?” she asked.

  “No,” he admitted. “But it had to have been nice, considering you did it without a ladder.”

  “I lost a few hit points in the process,” Medeia admitted.

  An alien feinted, and Jain jumped, almost swinging his ax. “So what about the keep?”

  “What about it?” Medeia said. “Sheila’s got it.”

  “But she has no buddy!” Jain said.

  He felt Medeia shrug against his back. “It’s her VR. The environment is her buddy. Didn’t you see what she did to that brazier? Or the dragon?” Medeia reached around with her sword and pointed toward the tent that loomed beyond the ring of aliens in front of Jain. “Shall we?”

  “Let’s.” Swinging his ax, Jain dashed into the rank of opposing Xenon in front of him.

  The creatures parted, though the one directly in front was too slow—or couldn’t because of the press of those in behind—and Jain sliced right through the creature.

  Medeia joined him, swinging her sword in a spinning maelstrom of fury. It was different than how he imagined she would fight; he always imagined her as a rogue stalking in the dark, backstabbing enemies from behind. But that was only because of her ship, and the limitations the vessel imposed upon her. Here, she was finally able to unleash her inner swordswoman.

  Jain put his shield to good use, blocking any tentacles that flung toward him, not wanting to see his hit points drop further. He also utilized it as a battering ram, whenever there were multiple enemies in front of him, and he couldn’t bring his ax to bear on more than one of them. He swung that ax back and forth, hewing through the enemy units.

  Meanwhile Medeia twirled her sword beside him, splashing herself in the plumes of blood and gore she released. Her blade seemed to experience no resistance whatsoever when it encountered alien flesh so that Jain had to wonder what kind of edge she had applied to the sword—his own ax, despite the laser rims, got bogged down a few times in the thick bodies.

  He got hit lightly a few more times, and his hit points dropped to forty, but otherwise, between the two of them, they made good progress through the horde. The sprawling blue tent awaited before them.

  The Xenon gave way to ranks of tentacled machines. The bright silver upper bodies resembled the aliens in shape, whereas the lower bodies possessed the breadth and treads of human tanks.

  Jain ducked behind his shield as plasma bolts came in.

  “Crudes,” Jain muttered. “I haven’t fought these things since the Battle of Talowna.”

  “It’s certainly a blast from the past, isn’t it?” Medeia commented, also sheltered behind her shield.

  “You were there?” Jain asked her. The inside of his shield was beginning to glow red hot from all the plasma impacts it was taking.

  “No,” Medeia said. “But I played a few VR recreations of the battle. It was supposed to be fun, but it wasn’t.” Her own shield was turning white on the inside.

  “We called them Crudes because of their comparatively archaic tech,” Jain said. “But here we are, facing them down with simple swords and shields. We’re the crude ones now.”

  A few Xenon tried to approach Jain and Medeia from behind to hit their exposed backs; stray plasma bolts from the Crudes occasionally struck some of the aliens down, which made the remainder wary to approach. But for those that did, Jain swung his ax behind him, and Medeia her sword, holding them at bay while keeping their shields directed toward the robot tanks.

  Jain started when one of those metal tentacles slammed into his shield, trying to break through the weakened metal. A shallow depression formed at the impact site.

  Another tentacle struck down from directly above, reaching over his shield in an attempt to pluck him out. Jain dodged to the side, bringing his shield with him, and sliced the tip of the metal appendage away. The limb recoiled.

  He flung his shield down in time to deflect the next round of Crude fire.

  “We’re going to have to rush the Crudes,” Jain shouted at Medeia.

  She tilted her head, striking down a Xenon that had charged her. “Then let’s do it.”

  “Interlock shields!” Jain said.

  They dispatched the remaining brave Xenon behind them, then she joined her shield to his, and they pressed forward.

  Plasma bolts continued to come in; the tentacles also battered their shields, repeatedly attempting to come in from above and forcing them to dodge.

  Jain crouched low, holding his shield at an angle in front of him to protect both the front and top directions. Medeia did the same.

  Jain’s shield was white hot at that point, and riddled with depressions from the tentacles. It wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

  Jain struck something solid.

  He’d reached one of the tanks.

  The Crude started to accelerate, its treads crushing his shield into the ground.

  Jain abandoned the shield and stepped back, swinging his ax into the broad armored body. Medeia was able to keep hold of her own shield, but she also swung, cutting through the body. Then they dashed into the gap they had made, using the metal body to screen them from the other alien tanks.

  The Crude struck down with its tentacles, but Jain and Medeia carved them away. Then they plunged their weapons into the torso region, cutting it partially in half, and the robot deactivated.

  Jain paused to pick up a portion of a wide tentacle he’d cut off. He sliced off a thin piece and drilled a groove into the center with the laser edge of his ax, forming a grip. Then, with his free arm, he hefted the metal into the air using the new handhold.

  “Fresh shield,” he told Medeia.

  She merely shrugged.

  It didn’t quite cover his entire body like the latter shield, and the edges were ragged, but it would suffice.

  Jain peered past the edge of their new cover. The tent was just beyond the metal ranks. But impossible to reach: incoming plasma bolts from the Crudes forced him to duck behind the wreckage.

  “We’re not going to make it,” Jain said.

  “There has to be a way,” Medeia said.

  Behind him, the Xenon stayed back; at first he thought none of them wanted to get hit by str
ay plasma bolts from the tanks, but then he realized they were rushing the castle. Ladders covered the walls, and Xenon were flowing up them in great stinking swaths.

  “The keep!” Jain said.

  Medeia followed his gaze. “So we’ve lost.”

  A shadow blotted out the sun overhead.

  Jain glanced upward. “Not yet.”

  The dragon swooped low. Sheila rode on its back. The giant beast breathed fire, striking the tanks, melting a path to the tent.

  “Let’s go!” Jain said.

  He realized Sheila had risked everything to clear a path to the shard. He wasn’t going to waste the opportunity she’d given them.

  Sheila attempted to approach the tent herself, by flying the dragon toward it, but incoming fire from the remaining Crudes struck the beast, and it roared in pain, before plunging to the ground nearby.

  Hope she made it.

  There was no time to check. While the surrounding Crudes were still distracted, he raced around and across the melted wreckages Sheila had cleared. He swung his battle-ax at the adjacent tanks as he went by, while Medeia did the same on the opposite side, and they cut large gashes into the sides of their bodies. Sparks rose into the air from the metal on metal contact, and smoking Crudes were left in their wake.

  They reached the main tent and plowed through the entrance flap.

  It closed behind them, shutting them off from the field.

  In front of Jain was the deadliest mechanical monstrosity he had ever seen. It floated in the air, composed of a cylindrical torso reaching to the height of an ordinary man. Eighteen jointed, metal limbs swiveled around it, protruding from all sides. Each appendage wielded a sword.

  Behind it, in the center of the tent, on a tiny golden pillow, lay a small shard, sitting like a jewel, with a single ray of light shining down onto it from a tear in the tent above.

  “Well,” Medeia said. “I have a feeling this is going to suck.”

  The metal monstrosity struck. Those eighteen limbs flicked out, slicing out with swords that moved in a blur.

  Jain narrowly lifted his shield to block; Medeia did likewise. Without those shields, the two of them would be dead right now—it would have been impossible to parry all of those blades.

  “Why is it when we need to accelerate our time sense the most, we can’t?” Medeia complained above the constant banging of blades against her shield.

  The cylinder gyrated to the side, trying to strike Jain behind the shield. He narrowly brought up his ax to deflect as many of them as he could, and stepped backward, bringing his shield to the side to block. One of them struck his arm in a glancing blow, and his hit points dropped to thirty.

  Damn it.

  Medeia rushed past while the machine was distracted, trying to reach the shard, but then another monstrosity descended from the ceiling, materializing from nowhere, and deployed its blades to block.

  “The hell did that come from!” Medeia said as she defended the new threat.

  Jain retreated under that onslaught. He kept his makeshift shield held in front of him, and it was just battered. He occasionally deflected the blades when they tried to come at him from around the shield, but that was really all he could do. Medeia fared little better ahead of him, constantly on the defensive.

  He had backed almost to the tent flap when motion alerted him to an intruder.

  He was about to swing his ax around when he heard Sheila’s voice.

  “Relax, it’s me,” she said.

  She held two swords in her hands, but she sheathed them in a pair of scabbards that formed an X on her back.

  Then Sheila dashed past, weaving between him and Medeia, making for the shard.

  “Wait!” Jain said.

  Another machine materialized, dropping from the ceiling in front of her.

  Sheila rolled to the ground and tried to roll past, but those blades intercepted her. Sheila narrowly clambered to her feet, drawing her twin swords in time to defend. She backed away, struggling to defend against those blows without a shield. Her gauntlets and the plate armor on her forearms became dented as she took hits. One of the impacts drew blood.

  So now they were all occupied.

  Jain had watched all of this by sneaking glances away from his current opponent, but now he returned all of his attention on his foe. It chopped off a sizable portion of the right side of his shield, forcing him to defend more with his ax. His back was right up against the entry flap by that point, and he was considering simply fleeing through it.

  Can’t abandon them…

  “The keep is almost lost,” Sheila said. “We have to get that shard. And now!”

  A plan wrought of desperation formed in Jain’s mind.

  He threw his shield forward with all his strength, slamming it into the cylinder, and stopped up several of the blades as they stabbed the metal. At the same time, he drew his battle-ax close to his chest and dove to the ground, rolling underneath the machine.

  On the other side he scrambled to his feet and nimbly dodged the blades on its other side as they struck for his back. He ran forward, threading between Medeia and Sheila who were still engaged in deadly dances with their own foes.

  Another monstrosity materialized from above. Jain threw his ax at it as it descended, and rolled underneath at the same time. Blades struck the ground behind him, narrowly missing.

  He scrambled to his feet, catching a blow to his ankle that the armor absorbed.

  His hit points dropped to ten.

  He rushed forward, victory in sight, but then another metal monster descended.

  He dove at the first sign of its materialization, rolling to the floor, and scrambled to one knee in front of the golden pillow.

  He reached for the shard, but then four blades penetrated his torso, and he froze in disbelief.

  Wracked by pain, choking on his own blood, he jammed his hand forward and snatched the blood-splattered shard from the pillow.

  Sixteen more blades slammed through his torso.

  The VR environment turned black.

  He floated in the default barebones VR environment, surrounded by the wireframe cube.

  He exhaled in frustration. I was so close.

  He went to the Current Users option. This time only one username was shown. It wasn’t a series of random characters, but showed Sheila’s name.

  He chose the Send Message option. “So, did we win?”

  He dreaded the answer.

  Sheila didn’t reply for a long moment. And then her voice came over the comm. “We did. You did it.”

  “Is Medeia all right?”

  “She sent a message just before you,” Sheila said. “We’re all good. The self-destruct sequence has terminated.”

  Jain slumped, feeling utterly relieved. He couldn’t help the sudden tears that welled in his eyes, even if he was a mere “AI.” He blinked them away, and began to chuckle, louder and longer than he had in a while. He laughed and laughed, his chortles filling the empty VR environment.

  “Xander, are you here?” Jain said, when he had a moment to catch his breath.

  Nothing.

  He snickered a few final times. Oh well, it was probably for the best that Xander hadn’t seen him... the Accomp would have probably recommended therapy.

  What a long day.

  Too bad it wasn’t over yet.

  22

  Jain logged out of the staging VR environment and returned to the bridge.

  He took a peak at his tactical display. Not much had changed since he left, thanks to his high time sense. The trio of Hull Burners had just crossed the three-thousand-kilometer range from him and were still decelerating, while the other three barracuda-equipped Piranhas guarded the Void Warriors that remained out of range of the alien ship’s lightning weapon.

  He glanced at Sheila. Her eyes were still closed. “Sheila. Tell me you’ve taken control of the ship.”

  If she could do that, Jain hoped the admiral would forgive him for setting Maxwell free. T
he admiral would demand control of their new toy, of course, and Jain would give it to him. It would be an expensive appeasement gift, but worth it if Jain could avoid a court martial.

  Sheila opened her eyes and looked at him. “I’ve escalated my privileges to the admin level, yes. But there’s a problem.”

  “What?” Jain said.

  “I didn’t stop the self-destruct sequence in time,” Sheila said.

  Jain stiffened. “The ship is going to blow?”

  “No,” Sheila said. “I still halted the overall process, but not before the alien AI core succeeded in causing some serious damage. Namely: it wiped its neural network. Apparently, erasing its consciousness was part of the first stage of the destruct sequence.”

  “Well that’s... too bad, I guess,” Jain said. “So that means its mind is essentially a blank slate at the moment.”

  “That’s right,” Sheila said. “The secondary databases and all the alien hardware aboard are still intact, but it has no actual conscious mind, per se.”

  “Well that’s good, isn’t it?” Jain said. “It means we don’t have to worry about the alien AI interfering, and causing more viral and anti-viral subroutines to attack while we’re logged in.”

  Sheila shook her head. “Normally I’d say yes, except that because of the underlying design, an overarching consciousness needs to be in place. The autonomous subsystems are intricately linked with that consciousness, and without it, they’re switching off one by one. I’m downloading as much as I can from the cloud database as we speak, trying to grab what I can before it shuts down.”

  “Well at least we haven’t lost everything then,” Jain said. “Is there anything in that database regarding the shut down? A system manual of some kind that we can use to jump-start the different subsystems?”

  “There are some documents, yeah,” Sheila said. “And I have found what you could call a system manual. Everything is in the alien language, though. I’ll have to write a translation program at some point when I have time. What little I’ve manually translated using the Mimic-to-English dictionary Maxwell provided doesn’t mention anything about restarting the different subsystems. There might be other manuals with that little tidbit in it, but I’ll have to translate them, too. Also, it doesn’t help that our friend Maxwell neglected to share all the data formats his kind uses, so I have a bunch of indecipherable files on my hands. I’m reverse-engineering a few of them right now using a special program I wrote in the alien programming language.”